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Ontario’s first birth centre to open in Toronto next summer

Premier Dalton McGuinty announced in March 2012 plans to pilot two birth centres in the province, where health women could give birth outside of the hospital setting and assisted by midwives. (Colin McConnell / Toronto Star file photo)

By Andrea GordonStaff Reporter

Wed., Dec. 19, 2012

Toronto women expecting babies next summer will be the first in the province to have the option of delivering in a birth centre run by midwives.

The Toronto Birth Centre, announced Tuesday by Ontario Health Minister Deb Matthews, will be the first of two pilot centres available to women with low-risk pregnancies, handling up to 500 a year.

“This is very much about giving moms and their partners another choice,” said Matthews, who released the news while surrounded by mothers and babies at Seventh Generation Midwives Toronto, a downtown clinic and lead partner in the new centre.

Matthews called it “an important milestone” for pregnant women who prefer to have their babies outside a hospital setting but don’t want a home birth.

The location has not yet been announced, as details are still being finalized on the lease. While there is no firm date, the expected summer launch “means the first baby to be born there has already been conceived,” the health minister noted.

Within hours of the news, Seventh Generation was receiving calls from expectant women anxious to be among the first to deliver their babies in the new birth centre, which will be open to the 90 to 100 midwives in Toronto and their clients.

“It’s a historical moment for midwifery in Ontario,” said midwife Sara Wolfe, who practises with Seventh Generation and is executive director of the Toronto Birth Centre Corp., a non-profit group that put together the application.

“We’re thrilled to be given this opportunity. It’s a very exciting time.”

Women hoping to have babies in the centre should contact a midwife to inquire, Wolfe said.

Seventh Generation includes a dozen midwives who have hospital privileges at Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre, serve downtown clients and also specialize in care of aboriginal women. As lead partner, it will be located in the new birth centre, and clinical space will also be available for other practices.

The long-awaited news follows a vigorous campaign by the Association of Ontario Midwives and their clients, who had been pushing for birth centres to promote natural childbirth, and in turn, reduce medical and surgical interventions such as epidurals, inductions and caesareans, which would not be carried out there.

Birth centres will work in partnership with hospitals, and women facing complications would be transferred to care of obstetricians.

The location and timing of the second pilot site is expected to be announced in the new year.

Evidence shows that moving routine procedures out of hospital and into specialized not-for-profit clinics like birth centres can translate to high quality care and lower costs, Matthews said. This is key at a time of burgeoning health care budgets.

And by taking low-risk women out of hospital settings, more obstetricians and hospital beds will be available to the high-risk patients who need them.

Providing low-risk women with community-based care through birth centres will strengthen the province’s system of maternal and newborn health, said Lisa Weston, president of the Association of Ontario Midwives.

The centres, providing care from conception through to six weeks post-partum, are also expected to serve as community hubs for prenatal education, breastfeeding and parenting support, as well as training other health care professionals in low-risk birth.

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